Pressbooks (Non-Horror)

At 18.75 x 12.5 inches, this 8 page pressbook is large and packed with promotion for the ape man. Unfortunately it was printed on thin, acid-prone paper, so handling had to be kept to a minimum for scanning. Also, I think the paper was tan originally, not white, so I refrained from doing any color correction. This is the sexiest (thank you pre-code!) of the Tarzan movies with Maureen O’Sullivan and Johnny Weissmuller swinging through the trees and audiences wishing they could too. Angelo Rossitto plays an evil native dwarf. (His team-ups with Bela Lugosi were fun to watch.)  I wish they had done more of them. Johnny Eck (Freaks) plays the bird creature. The ape costume during the climactic battle scene must have been pretty scary-looking back then, but now is somewhat lacking. Overall, still a fun, romantic action movie.

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Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) PressbookRead More »

Another lost city reluctantly found, another treasure stolen by dastardly white hunters. Brenda Joyce takes over the role of Jane (but without the chemistry of Maureen O’Sullivan) and Tarzan’s home atop the Great Escarpment changes into a next door over from the trading hut location. So, both chemistry and mystery start leaving the series at this point. But still a fun watch as they bring on the Amazons (or “forest maidens” as the pressbook promotes). Coming at the end of World War II, storylines with empowered women made the circuit, but still with feminine frills on, so to speak. Best not to scare the male audience too much.

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I caught Meet Nero Wolfe on a double bill with a Margaret Rutherford Agatha Christie movie back in the 1980s. I forget exactly where in New York City the event took place, but I recall the cramped theater was rather hot after a while and also that both movies were a far cry from the novels they purportedly were scripted from. I can definitely say the Nero Wolfe movie was awfully cast and added cheap humor instead of notable characterization. Even though I was in my teens at the time, I had read most of the Wolfe novels as well as Christie’s and really felt let down by the onscreen shambles. On television, Rex Stout’s creation has faired a little better. Timothy Hutton was quite presentable as Archie Goodwin and even William Shatner, who played Archie  in a Nero Wolfe unsold pilot in 1959, was not shabby at all. The Wolfe role has been a challenge taken on by others including Joseph Conrad, Thayer David, Maury Chaykin, Walter Connolly, and Kurt Kasznar. I have a fondness for Thayer David’s take, but I’m biased because I’m a Dark Shadows fan (he played Ben Stokes).

The pressbook is as large as Nero Wolfe, coming in at 17.5 x 12 inches and 16 pages. On the exploitation page it mentions a tie-up with selling Monopoly. “Monopoly, the parlor-game that has swept the country in sensational fashion, to seriously threaten the status of bridge as an evening pastime, is shown on the screen for the first time…” Wow. We can thank Monopoly for saving us all from playing Bridge. Who knew?

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Here's the 11×17 inches pressbook for Tarzan's Desert Mystery. While Jane is away helping the war effort, Tarzan must contend with Nazis, hungry plants, and a pesky giant spider. A fun matinee romp in the series, this is the 8th movie for Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan. Amazingly, while I'm a big fan of the Tarzan movies, this is the one I have yet to see. It's on my bucket list.

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“Exciting expose of parole racket,” The Wayward Girl (not to be confused with The Wayward Girl starring Liv Ullmann) is a 1950s crime movie through and through.  The poster art, especially the color-version, is fairly lurid in mood.

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A stunningly sad, desperate, and atmospheric movie, Sunset Boulevard is a flashback narrated by a dead guy, the one you see floating in the middle of the pool at the beginning. How can you not love a story narrated by a dead guy? And he’s not even a zombie. He’s just really dead. How refreshing. You can read my review.

ComicRack reader version: Download Sunset Boulevard British Pressbook

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It looks like this pressbook for Secret Service in Darkest Africa took quite a trip through the jungle itself. The large format, and at 12 pages, it does still stands out as a promotional seller for this sequel to G-Men vs. the Black Dragon by Republic. This time around the Nazis provide the villainy.

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Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943)
PressbookRead More »

I’m sure this pressbook was originally eight pages, but six is all I have for now until I can track down another copy. The East Side Kids were quite a movie franchise, especially if you count their various iterations (Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, Bowery Boys) along the way to Monogram. I will say the East Side Kids were my favorite grouping. The ensemble wordplay and relationships were always fun to watch, even if the story wasn’t top-notch. Sure, Monogram didn’t have a lot of money to kick around, but they made a lot of good, entertaining movies anyway. Ernie “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison shows of his hoofing talents in this one.

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Smart Alecks (1942) PressbookRead More »

To see William Powell at the peak of his detection skills, go no further than The Thin Man series. Interestingly, the pressbook tries to play up the humor angle, given Powell’s Nick Charles whimsy, but this movie left much of that on the dock before it shipped to theaters.

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Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland team up in another Monogram comedy that mixes the usual 1940s tropes (like gangsters and  soda jerks for instance). Darro gets top-billing, Moreland (his “colored crony,” “colored cohort”), barely a nod, though the two made a good team up. The Shake It Up with Soda Store Stunts! is informative. I would have loved to have seen Skello in the theater lobby, for sure.

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If Larry "Buster" Crabbe is in it, it must be good. He plays a detective after stolen bonds worth two million dollars, which in today's money is a lot more. Red Barry was a comic strip by Will Gould. No relation to Chester Gould who did Dick Tracy. William Gould played Commissioner Tom (again, no relation to either Goulds), and Rita Gould played Mama Sonia (once again, no relation to the other Goulds either). That's a lot of unrelated Goulds. The pressbook has a neat appearance with a centerfold spread of promotional ideas.

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Frankie Darro starred (more or less with the dog, Rinty) in The Wolf Dog (1933) serial and other actioners from Mascot. He had a big role in The Phantom Empire serial in 1935. His small stature and youthful looks kept him into young roles for a while until his age caught up with him. He also starred, along with Mantan Moreland, in movies like this one for Monogram. He also did a lot of television work. Notably, Mantan Moreland receives barely a mention in the pressbook as an “ace colored comic.” Moreland was, for a moment, considered as a replacement for Shemp in the Three Stooges, but that did not happen. He would have been awesome.

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